Welcome Harold Harsh to The Deep Creek Blog. Harold is the owner of Spring Creek Outfitters, a fly fishing guide service based out of Garrett County. He also hunts and will be sharing his knowledge of the outdoors with readers on a regular basis. Here is his first report:
With the end of summer and a feeling of fall in the air, I’m happy to be returning to the Deep Creek Blog as your new outdoors editor. I will mainly focus on the world of fishing, but will also write about hunting as I am an avid bird hunter.
After the wettest spring on record and the rivers in the area not very fishable, they have dropped to the other end of the scale with the lack of rain this summer. Water levels are low and clear making fishing a lot more difficult. The Youghiogheny here behind my house is as low as I’ve seen it in years, but thanks to the power plant and the water from Deep Creek, the Catch and Release area below the outflow is still in pretty good shape.
The Savage and North Branch of Potomac are also at low summer levels. The water is gin
clear and the fish a little spooky. We are still catching some nice fish if we see them first and make a good presentation. Hopefully with the change in the seasons we will start to see some rain and with the trees not producing leaves, more water will end up in the rivers. The Casselman River will be restocked with trout in October when the water levels rise enough for them to survive.
The lower Bass sections on the North Branch have been fishing well and with the removal of the dam in Cumberland it should add a couple of miles to the lower float.
With Grouse Hunting just around the corner, I received a survey in the mail from the Ruffed Grouse Society and the MD Wildlife and Heritage Service. The survey wants to know how many days afield, hours hunted, birds flushed and birds killed. I hope to get out quite a bit after the leaves are off the trees and with Mt. Nebo WMA out my front door pretty good hunting is close at hand.
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